A MS-13 gang member living in the U.S. illegally is suspected of murdering his girlfriend and her two children in Herndon, Virginia, according to a Thursday Fox 5 report.
Police encountered Jose Palacios, a 37-year-old man nicknamed “Little Crazy”, threatening to jump off the top of a parking garage, according to Fox 5. Palacios told police he killed his girlfriend, Claudia Menjivar, and her two children, after an argument over cheating, which led him to then commit suicide, according to Fox 5.
Police afterward went to the girlfriend’s apartment to find the bodies of Menjivar and her 9-year-old boy and girl who was turning 10 that day, according to Fox 5. Police couldn’t give any information on how the mother and kids died but did say there were no gunshots, according to Fox 5.
“Don’t know why they let him out,” the father of the two children killed told Fox 5. The father also said he didn’t know Palacios, according to Fox 5.
A judge suspended Palacios’ sentence by seven years, according to Fox 5. He served two years in prison and then was deported, but later returned to the U.S. illegally, according to Fox 5.
Palacios was arrested in 2015 on multiple gang and human trafficking charges, according to Fox 5. He pleaded guilty in 2015 to human trafficking, gang recruitment of a juvenile, and three counts of gang participation in Fairfax County Circuit Court, according to Fox 5.
Police said Palacios and three others were arrested after “a nearly three-month-long investigation” into an assault of a fifteen-year-old female in Manassas, Virginia, during an MS-13 gang initiation ritual on November 14, 2014, according to Fox 5.
MS-13 members in March were arrested in Texas, and the Department of Justice also announced terrorism indictments for 14 MS-13 gang leaders in January. Federal authorities gave multiple murder charges against 10 people believed to be associated with the MS-13 gang in May 2020, following the murders of three people.